Alaster Rowland woke up with a dreadful hangover and a foreboding sense that disaster lurked just beyond his door.
In other words, it was a rather typical day.
Even as he began to stir, his manservant came bustling into the room, tray in hand.
“What’s the damage, Falshaw?” Tuck asked as he reached for the steaming mug of coffee. No fine pekoe for him. He started each day with a bracing cup.
Most usually out of necessity.
“Your uncle, Lord Charleton, has sent round a note,” the fellow told him.
“That bad, eh?”
“So it seems,” Falshaw said with an uncharacteristic note of censure. A real valet wouldn’t dare such a tone, but then again Tuck couldn’t afford a proper valet. However, Falshaw had his own unique talents—like being able to discourage creditors and making ends meet when there were no ends to be had, so truly he was the best man for the job. “And you made a wager.”
Nothing new there, Tuck noted as he pulled on his wrapper and strode over to the window.
“Regarding a pair of ladies,” Falshaw continued as he began to straighten up the room.
Again, nothing new, Tuck thought, as he parted the curtain and looked out at the bright May sunshine. He’d wagered on more than his fair share of opera dancers and flirts. Why there was once this time—
“Ladies,” Falshaw repeated, and this time the censure was more telling.
Ladies? Tuck turned a skeptical gaze toward his employee.
“Lady Charleton’s goddaughters, to be exact,” the man supplied as if prodding at Tuck’s lack of memories.
Ladies? Goddaughters? That all had a decidedly proper ring to it. He scalded his mouth as he took an anxious gulp of coffee. And it rather did explain the note from his uncle.
“Yes, indeed,” Falshaw replied, sounding a bit too gleeful as he hung up a jacket.
If Tuck didn’t know better, he’d suspect that Falshaw rather liked seeing his employer periodically roasted by his only respectable relation.
“I’m in the suds, aren’t I?”
It wasn’t so much a question as an utterance, but that didn’t stop Falshaw from happily answering, “Oh, aye, my lord.”
Lord Charleton’s butler, Brobson, barely admitted Tuck to the house. Even then, only to the foyer. “Your uncle will see you momentarily.” Then the fellow strode off as if he had just admitted a plague victim into the household.
Yes, indeed. It was as bad as all that.
As he stood there, shuffling about a bit nervously, he heard something. Coming to a standstill, he heard it more clearly.
Weeping. And then a huge sniffle. The sort that would leave a perfectly good handkerchief utterly useless.
He glanced at the front door. The one that led to the street and London beyond. Where perhaps he could start anew. Join a circus. Ship off to parts unknown. Drown himself in the Thames.
He shook his still throbbing head at any of those options. He wasn’t overly fond of travel—all the discomforts and inconveniences of being away from one’s own bed. And sadly, he was a perfectly good swimmer.
The crying had now risen in pitch and fervor, and jangled at his nerves. Bother, it would weigh on any man’s sensibilities.
Besides, it wrenched on his heart. He’d never admit this to anyone, not even if they were to forgive all his debts, but a woman’s tears were his undoing.
Against his better judgment, Tuck pushed the library door open and waded in.
He immediately wished he hadn’t.
Admittedly he’d been a bit drunk the previous night, but certainly he’d have remembered this.
The puffy, red face. The ugly, provincial gown. The dark hair sticking out in a few places.
But to the lady’s credit, it appeared she was nearing the end of her torment, for certainly much more and she’d risk flooding the carpet.
Then her gaze became more focused as if she’d finally realized she was no longer alone. And her eyes took on a wild-eyed rage that prodded him to take a step back.
“You!” she gasped, stalking forward with all the fury of, well, a fury. Worse, she caught up a vase from the side table as she approached.
Alaster Rowland was many things. A fool wasn’t one of them. He took as many steps backward as he could until he bumped into the wall, having misjudged the angle of his retreat.
Worse yet, the woman hunting him was a veritable horror. A hot, wet mess of tears and scalding anger brandishing a domestic weapon of sorts.
“That vase . . . in your hand . . .” he managed.
“Don’t think I won’t throw it,” she told him.
“I’d duck and it would be a waste of a perfectly innocent vase.”
“I won’t miss,” she told him with all surety.
“No?”
“I’m the best bowler in Kempton. I’m always picked first.”
Yes, just his luck. To have found himself facing an angry miss with a penchant for cricket.
Could his day get any worse?
He tried another tack. “You know that’s my uncle’s favorite vase. And I do believe quite priceless.”
He had no idea if it was or wasn’t—a favorite or of value—but it was enough of a caution that she thought the better of her actions, and luckily for him, returned it to its former place of glory.
How could this be the same chit he’d met last night? It wasn’t possible, for he held a very certain recollection of her having been quite fetching.
“You wretched, horrible man! How could you let go of me?”
So, yes, it was her. Though he hadn’t thought he’d been that drunk.
“How could you?” she raged, wagging a finger at him.
Yes, well, better a finger than the crockery being cracked over his head. At least so he thought until she hurled her next accusation at him. “You’ve ruined me!”
This took Tuck aback. Ruined her? He wanted to rush in and assure her, having taken a second glance, that he could say with all certitude that nothing of the sort had happened between them.
He’d have remembered taking this descendant of Medusa to his bed.
She managed a gulping sob that seemed to quell her tears, and then she blew into the poor, hapless square of linen, trumpeting like an ailing swan, a sound that stabbed at the last remnants of his hangover.
“Miss Tempest, isn’t it?’ he asked, hand pressed to his brow, his eyes clenched shut against the unending pounding within. As his mother liked to tell him, a hangover was merely the brandy’s way of trying to get out.
“Of course I am Miss Tempest,” she snapped. “We met last night.”
He looked again and still couldn’t make the connection to the lithesome chit he’d met.
Worse, her eyes widened as she came to a shocked realization. “You don’t remember me.” To his horror, she took a calculating glance at the vase.
“I wouldn’t say that precisely,” he offered quickly, hoping to divert her. “But certainly you were wearing a different gown—” Lord, he hoped she was wearing a different gown—for the one she had on was positively hideous.
She snorted and took another step back from him. “Whyever did you let go of me? I was dancing.”
Tout au contraire. He was neck deep in a wager that proved beyond a doubt that what she’d been doing the previous night was anything but dancing.
A wager Falshaw had delightedly filled him in on.
“And now you’ve ruined me,” she finished.
“I hardly think I’ve done all that,” he told her, doing his best to glance in any direction but hers.
Yet he found it an impossible feat. Like when one happened upon a carriage accident and everything was in a desperate tangle.
How could you not look?
Nor would the miss be ignored. “You. Let. Go. Of. Me.”
Truly, could anyone blame him?
“And now . . .” she began until another bout of sniffles and gulps came choking out. “And n-n-n-ow . . .”
At this seemingly insurmountable impasse, she flopped down on the settee and began to cry anew, leaving him aimlessly adrift in the middle of the room. A litany of unintelligible complaints rose up through this new spate of tears as to all she’d lost—a proper marriage this, a respectable match that, and a lot of other things that seemed of great import to her, including some mention of a list.
“Miss Tempest, I am truly—” he said, trying to make her stop. Indeed, his head was reeling.
“I know what you truly are.” Sniff.
He thought of advising her to get in line. The rest of London thought of him thusly.
Nor was she done. “We are both ruined.” Sniff. “My sister and I.” Snuffle. Snuffle. “We’ll be sent home for certain.” Sniff. “Tomorrow, if not today.”
He hadn’t truly been listening, what with all the sniffling, but a few words stuck in his ears.
Namely, “sent home.”
Sent home? Tuck whirled around to face her. No, no, no, this would never do. Sheer, gut-wrenching panic ripped through him.
“A fortnight, sir,” Falshaw had said. “You’ve two weeks to prove that your uncle’s charges are indeed ladies. ‘Diamonds of the first order,’ is how Mr. Hathaway and Lord Rimswell phrased it when they carried you in.”
Yet if the Tempest sisters left London . . . however would he win this wager? A wager he couldn’t afford to lose.
“Home?” he blustered, raking a hand through his hair and pacing in front of her. “I hardly see why. Besides, uncle wouldn’t be so cruel as to send you away so soon—”
“He won’t have a choice,” she declared, waving what was once a proud white bit of linen that now sagged in surrender. “Did you look at the salver when you came in?”
“Well, no—” Since it wasn’t something he usually gave much regard. His always contained notices from creditors and the greengrocer. Barely veiled threats from unhappy husbands. Vowels that needed to be paid.
No, salvers had never been his friend. And now it seemed they weren’t hers either.
“It is empty,” she told him, with another shuddering sigh of loss. “Empty!”
In his residence, that would be something of a miracle.
“Mr. Rowland, if ever there was clear evidence that my sister and I are ruined it is that empty salver out there. No one wants us.”
Somehow, Ilford’s words from the night before came haunting forward. Those chits won’t be able to set one foot outside your uncle’s door by tomorrow morning.
Now it was Tuck’s turn to sag down onto the settee beside her, for suddenly he couldn’t breathe.
If he didn’t win this wager, he’d be forced to . . .
He didn’t want to think of what he would be forced to do.
This time Charleton would cut him off. Blame him for this entire mess, just as Miss Tempest was now.
As they rightly ought, but no matter that, he had to find a way to make this right.
For his sake. He stole a glance over at the lady beside him and listened as she went on about all the things that she’d never have now—a decent match, a good home—and knew that this wager was a far more dangerous bramble than he’d first realized.
What the devil did he know about making a lady into a Diamond? Or finding decent prospects? Or even good Society?
All things he’d avoided his entire adult life.
Now all these idols of decorum, these altars of propriety, everything she desired, was suddenly everything he must deliver unto her.
He drew a steadying breath, and, like the good gambler he was (most days), he rallied his wits, his steely nerve.
“All is not lost, Miss Tempest. Never is,” he began, Uncle Hero’s words coming out of nowhere. Oh, it was a desperate day indeed when he found himself quoting the Honorable Hero Worth.
Who was a contradiction in every way, starting with his name.
“I don’t see how—” she began, then dissolved into another spate of desperate tears. When her handkerchief wouldn’t do, she caught hold of his sleeve and dabbed her eyes on it, so distraught she didn’t appear to even realize what she was doing.
To his best coat.
In his own state of desperation—after all, this was his only decent coat—Tuck quickly intercepted, pulling his arm away and sounding like the veritable expert on the subject. “My dear Miss Tempest, London society is terribly fickle—one day you are on the out, and the next an Original, a Diamond to be desired by one and all.”
“A Diamond?” she managed, gulping at the word, a tiny flicker in her eyes, or was it just the last bit of tears still welled up there, threatening to spill over? In either case, that little spark in her eyes—as tiny and easily extinguishable as it might be—also appeared capable of illuminating even the dark reaches of his heart—the one usually blotted out by a brandy bottle.
For suddenly, that small sparkle, dare he call it “hope,” brought with it more memories from the night before.
Good heavens, she could be rather fetching—when one ignored the red nose and blotchy complexion.
Or the mess on his sleeve.
Her eyes, though, puffy and red-rimmed, held something else.
Determination.
“Miss Tempest, you must have faith,” he told her, getting to his feet. “You must trust me—”
“Trust you?” Her astonishment all but filled the room.
Well, she might have a point in that regard . . . But this was a new beginning for both of them.
“Yes, you must trust me. Because I can put this all to rights. I can.” He tried to sound far more confident than he felt.
After all, he only had two bloody weeks to pull off this miracle.
“I don’t see how—”
“Believe me, you will,” he promised, catching hold of her hand. “Let me be your guide. You came to London to be matched, did you not?”
“Well, yes—” she managed.
“And it would be a shame to have to leave when you’ve just arrived—”
She gave a shuddering sigh. “I haven’t even received all the dresses I ordered.”
“No!” He shook his head. “And how pretty you will look wearing them.”
“There is no point to any of it, for I cannot dance,” she told him.
“Is that all?” Tuck waved his hand at this. “’Tis nothing a good London dancing master can’t fix in an afternoon.”
The lady shook her head and glanced away, but not before he saw the skepticism in her expression.
“Come now, Miss Tempest,” he said softly, coaxing her to look up at him. “Will you allow me the privilege of helping you find your perfect match?”
All Lavinia had ever desired was wrapped up in those three words: your perfect match.
How many times had she envisioned how that would happen: She’d be wearing a pale muslin of the latest stare—much as she had worn last night. She be in the middle of a crowded assembly, surrounded by elegant and suitable guests.
And then he would come forward, pressing for an introduction. A delighted glow in his eyes over being granted admission into her inner circle. And then he’d take her hand and ask, nay, plead for a dance.
Of course that was usually when her splendid imaginings would come to a screeching halt.
For the dancing part was always a bit of a sticking point.
But still, she knew she would know he was the one because his touch would send shivers down her spine.
Wasn’t that always how it happened? At least it always did in the Miss Darby novels.
And yet, it was happening now.
Which there was no way it could or should be. For here she was, wearing her oldest day gown, and good heavens, whatever must she look like with all these tears? Yet, she was shivering. As she had last night at Almack’s.
When this man had held her hand.
No, it couldn’t be. Somehow he’d managed to draw her to her feet so she stood before him.
She glanced down to where her fingers were held hostage by Mr. Rowland, and she found herself transported back to the night before.
To that moment when his hand closed around hers, sending those traitorous tendrils of desire through her, leaving her utterly witless.
Exactly like she felt right now. This warmth, this dizzy desire to let him stay so improperly close had made no sense then and even now left the very frosty “No thank you, sir,” she should be issuing as a useless lump at the back of her throat.
Now there was no denying as she looked down at Mr. Rowland’s hand, the one still holding hers, that his warmth, his charm, or whatever it was that that twinkle in his eye did to her wits left her considering his daft offer of assistance.
And it was daft. As daft as her desire to step a little closer to this devilish rake before her.
“No,” she managed, pushing the word past her lips like one might a barrow full of rocks over a steep hill. Besides, she wasn’t so naive that she didn’t know, as Lady Essex always said, “a girl once ruined is forever so.” And so she told him. “What you are offering is impossible.”
There was nothing Alaster Rowland could do to help her.
Besides, you’ve already done enough, she thought, her earlier ire rising yet again, pulling her gaze back toward the vase.
Which didn’t look at all as priceless as Mr. Rowland avowed.
“Hardly impossible,” he replied, reaching and turning her so her back was to the vase. “Anything can happen. It’s London, after all.”
London. The very word still gave her shivers—much like his touch.
“Yes, it is,” she said, pulling away and returning to her spot on the settee. She settled in, smoothing out her skirts. “Though I thought London would be glorious.” She paused for a moment. “Not like this.”
Mr. Rowland found his spot beside her once again, catching up her hands and holding them until she dared to look up at him. “And it will be, if only you consign yourself to my care.”
His care. The care of a known rake. A veritable knave.
“Certainly not!” She snatched her hands back even as those dangerous and wretchedly treacherous shivers began to wile their way up her arms.
“A hastily made declaration, Miss Tempest, if ever there was one. You haven’t even heard me out.”
“I don’t need to. You have a very distinct reputation, Mr. Rowland.”
She slanted a glance at his handsome features and knew her list would need immediate amending.
Proper Rule No. 84. A lady must always be wary of a man who is far too handsome.
“A reputation? I suppose I might,” he offered. One might suspect, proudly. “But I am also welcome everywhere . . . most days.”
“Most days?” she echoed. “What sort of day is today?”
He glanced around. “I will admit today might not be my best example. For both of us, I imagine.”
“Best example? I was ruined last night.”
He shook his head. “Ruined? Hardly.” He got up from the settee and took a step back from her. “Ruined, Miss Tempest, usually involves something far more intimate than a clumsy display and a bit of gossip.”
Intimate.
Whyever had he used that word? For it whispered about inside her. It was like the mischief that swirled about him. Ever so tempting.
And decidedly not proper.
Alaster Rowland was one of those charmingly handsome devils that Lady Essex had always railed against at every meeting of the Society for the Temperance and Improvement of Kempton.
Handsome men can spare a glance at a lady and have her . . .
And have her what? Lavinia had always wanted to ask, for unfortunately, Lady Essex’s admonishments had never gone much further.
But suddenly Lavinia’s imagination seemed capable of filling in the rest. For all she could see was a shadowy room. Coals glowing in the grate.
And a gown falling to the carpet. Not a pale muslin. But a dark velvet. The sort of gown she’d always secretly desired. In blue. And not just any blue. But a rich, deep midnight blue. And his hands . . . his lips . . .
Lavinia pressed her lips together and tried to tamp down the heat growing inside her.
What was it about this man that had her wavering so easily from her very proper list?
“Come now, Miss Tempest,” he was saying, “you mustn’t let one unfortunate night dictate your entire life.”
She shook her head, more to push out the last remnants of those very improper, passionate thoughts, but Mr. Rowland mistook her, and continued on, pressing his point. “I’ll make you the talk of the Town, Miss Tempest,” he added as if he could sense her hesitation, her concerns.
“You already did, Mr. Rowland,” she shot back with the same sort of regal air she’d heard Lady Essex use on more than one occasion.
Though instead of cowing the man, it did quite the opposite.
He grinned at her. And it wasn’t with humor.
Rather approval.
“Then let’s give them something else to say,” he said, once again holding out his hand for her.